Creativity or productivity?

It is a beautiful, snowy morning. My dogs are sleeping peacefully (which rarely happens). I sit with a vacation day before me and imagine all of the things that I will do – I will paint, I will write, I will make pizza dough from scratch.

And then I remember all of the grown-up things that I said I would do – I would run the vacuum, I would drop the taxes off, I would clean and reorganize in the basement. Okay, that last one is definitely not happening.

I am perpetually stuck in a conflict between creativity and productivity. Perhaps you understand this struggle?

I dream of a creative life; of a studio in the backyard where I can spend hours in all of my creative pursuits. The reality is that living a creative life does not compensate well in our capitalistic society and so creativity lives in the small spaces around and in between the more mundane, but necessary, day to day adventures in vacuuming.

A disclaimer: I did not inherit my mother’s cleaning gene, so if I am saying I need to vacuum, I probably should have done it three days ago.

Productivity is highly valued in our society, and I appreciate productivity as much, if not more, than the next person. But, sometimes, I just don’t want to have productivity control my every waking moment. Weekends have become errand-laden, days off are now for appointments. I miss the days when an unplanned trip to Target felt like a mini-vacation and cereal for dinner was a celebration of non-conformity to societal norms.

Despite the research that supports doing nothing as a necessary component of taking care of both our physical and mental health, this message has not made it into our collective understanding of how we human. The Dutch concept of niksen means just being and implies that once you are doing something with a purpose, you have crossed from creativity to productivity. So, even writing this blog, which I do purely for enjoyment and the hope that someday more than sixteen people might read something I have written, has crossed from doing nothing into doing something productive.

Alright, here is my compromise: I will get the taxes around (only because I am hoping for a refund and that would help me get some new watercolor brushes) and then I will spend some time writing, then I can run the vacuum and order pizza for delivery while I do it, and I will have time to paint. This sounds very productive, doesn’t it? I’ll let you know how it goes!